The results of a survey conducted at UF showed that 67 percent of Floridians support requiring Spanish education in K-12 schools.
“My expectation was that there would be some support to it, but I didn’t expect it to be 67 percent,” said Chris McCarty, director of UF’s Survey Research Center at the Bureau of Economic and Business Research and a co-author of the study.
The survey was designed to get opinions from Floridians about what they thought about requiring certain classes in school, one of which was Spanish.
“I think it’s important to learn Spanish," said Jade Thomas, a UF psychology freshman. "Spanish is a language a lot of people know, and there’s a bunch of Spanish-speaking people here in Florida."
The questionnaire asked recipients what subjects students should be required to learn in school.
Based off of the results from the survey, computer skills had the highest support at 95 percent. Second language of student’s choice came in at 81 percent, Florida history at 77 percent, and geometry with 75 percent support.
The findings of this research are significant because a constitutional amendment requiring Spanish instruction would need 60 percent of voters, according to a press release.
The highest number of support for a Spanish requirement was in southeast Florida with 72 percent. North, central, and southwest Florida all had more than 60 percent.
[A version of this story ran on page 7 on 7/14/15]
